Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[PrinterPrinter]

Hello people,
My stereo PC is connected via Wifi to my main music server and streams across the house - it usually works very well and I rarely get any dropouts etc.

I wonder if there will be any noticeable benefit to connecting the stereo PC via a physical Ethernet cable? It would involve some serious drilling/work and I wonder how much it would worth...

What do you think?
Thanks!

[Matt]

It's going to sound the same either way.  A cable might be a little faster, so I suppose the initial pre-buffering could be shorter.

[Trumpetguy]

My only bad experience with WiFi and audio was when both server and client were wireless. Impossible to get a fully stable network connection. The server should definitely be cabled.

[Al ex]

Music always worked fine via WiFi, but I never could get work watching movies via WiFi.

Since I am using cables, no problems anymore.

[PrinterPrinter]

Cool thanks,
My server is wired and I don't do movies - so won't bother installing cables across the house, at least for now...

[Trumpetguy]

No problems streaming movies over WiFi here, as long as they are transcodet to lower the bitrate. Full blu-ray bitrate of 30Mbps is too tough.

[adlelare]

printer,  i have an interesting set up in my house (Ethernet backbone, Powerline and Wireless).. my preference wherever possible/feasible is wired to "fixed" devices (but my family does a lot of video viewing). but if you don't want Ethernet try Powerline (use your electrical system for data transfer and i've used it for years get maybe 100mbs reliably).. it is very simple to set up ...a couple of the devices are hard wired but one is a dlink that also works as a wireless extender (and it works great outside to extend wireless over my entire property)...do you do Bluetooth wireless (primarily cellphones of friends/family can play direct to my bluetooth enabled AVR?) one problem with wireless is that bluetooth while very convenient is pretty weak and with all other wireless interference (i think BT is 2.4 band) that is where quality degrades.. regards,

[astromo]

If you don't get drop outs, then you should be fine.

I've found video over Wi-Fi can be a "challenge", audio is fine depending on the density of the wall material and the number of corners the signal has to bounce around.

If you start to experience problems and need to employ a cable, then an Ethernet Over Power wall wart unit can offer a functional compromise that avoids punching holes through structures.